Copyright. Deepa Mani. August 2008

Transcription

1 Copyright By Deepa Mani August 2008

2 The Dissertation Committee for Deepa Mani certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: ESSAYS ON THE ORGANIZATION AND VALUE OF OUTSOURCING RELATIONSHIPS Committee Anitesh Barua, Supervisor Andrew B. Whinston Cynthia Beath Prabhudev Konana Raj Raghunathan

3 Essays on the Organization and Value of Outsourcing Relationships by Deepa Mani, B.A.; M.B.A.; M.S. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2008

4 Essays on the Organization and Value of Outsourcing Relationships Publication No. Deepa Mani, PhD. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008 Supervisor: Anitesh Barua Over the past decade, outsourcing has emerged as an imperative for competitive success in modern organizations. Yet, the high failure rate of outsourcing initiatives suggests that despite the significant opportunities available through outsourcing, several organizations remain unprepared for the transformation that it brings. My dissertation, Essays on the Organization and Value of Outsourcing Relationships, identifies governance strategies that maximize the strategic value of outsourcing investments and estimates the size of governance effects by analyzing the contribution of efficient governance to an increase in shareholder value of the outsourcing firm. The first two essays, An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Information Capabilities Design on Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Performance and An Empirical Analysis of the Contractual and Information Structures of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Relationships, focus on business process outsourcing (BPO), the fastest growing segment of the outsourcing market. In particular, the first essay emphasizes the information intensive nature of BPO to posit that iv

5 performance heterogeneity across BPO relationships is a function of the fit between the information requirements and information capabilities of the relationship. The design of information capabilities extends contract design that addresses incentive conflicts to include design of the information structure comprising relational processes and technologies that address cognitive conflict between the participant firms. The second essay demonstrates complementarities between the contractual and information structures to emphasize that their joint assessment is necessary to enhance the explanatory power of extant theories of organization. These results have important implications for how BPO relationships must be designed and managed to realize strategic value. The third essay in my dissertation, Outsourcing Discount or Paradox? A Comparative Analysis of the Long-Term Abnormal Stock Returns and Operational Performance Gains across Outsourcing Contracts, estimates the extent of this strategic value by assessing the longterm abnormal stock returns to the hundred largest outsourcing initiatives implemented between 1996 and I find that transaction cost economizing outsourcing decisions yield significantly higher abnormal returns. The results imply the need to exercise caution in initiating outsourcing initiatives and emphasize that value chain scoping and management are important sources of comparative advantage in the modern firm. v

9 List of Figures Figure 1.1: Conceptual Model of Fit between IR and IC 122 Figure 1.2: Process Complexity, Interdependence, and IR of the BPO Relationship.122 Figure 1.3: Continuum of IR of the BPO Relationship Figure 1.4: Illustrative Example of Complexity and Interdependence Figure 1.5: Second-order construct of IC of the BPO Relationship Figure 1.6: Alternative conceptualizations of fit between IR and IC Figure 1.7: Fit as a match between IR and IC of the BPO Relationship Figure 2.1: Second-order Construct of Information Structure of the BPO Relationship 124 Figure 3.1: Number and Value of Sample Contracts across Time Figure 3.2: Outsourcing Value by Contract Type across Time ix

10 Introduction Over the past decade, outsourcing has emerged as an imperative for competitive success in modern businesses. It is estimated that by 2008, outsourcing will constitute 58 percent of the average firm s technology budget. Moreover, core business functions such as R&D, product development and marketing are being externalized across a wide spectrum of industries to achieve diverse strategic objectives that shape firms competitive positions. Despite this extended reach of outsourcing, several researchers and practitioners have highlighted the complexity and high failure rate of outsourcing 1. In my dissertation, I draw on institutional economics and organizational theories to take a closer look at the performance implications of outsourcing and the factors that drive heterogeneity in outsourcing performance. The first two chapters in my dissertation focus on business process outsourcing (BPO) that is the fastest growing segment of the outsourcing market. As the information technology outsourcing (ITO) market matures, ITO is increasingly being bundled with BPO offerings and subsumed into a broader business process decision. According to Singh et al. (2007), the delivery of such converged ITO/ BPO services is expected to account for over 40 percent of the total deals by revenue by They emphasize that moving forward, an understanding of the issues unique to BPO management is essential for the IT organization. The academic literature in IS recognizes this trend: as such the IS outsourcing phenomenon has moved beyond the boundaries of the IS function to 1 70% of the respondents in a 2005 survey by Deloitte Consulting expressed significant dissatisfaction with their outsourcing projects. Similarly, a survey conducted by Bain Consulting found that although 82% of large firms in North America engage in BPO, almost half of the respondents say their outsourcing programs fall short of expectations. According to SAP INFO Solutions, four out of five BPO contracts inked today will be renegotiated within two years. Further, 20% of all such contracts will collapse (SMR Intelligence 2006). 1

11 include entire information technology (IT)-supported business processes (Hirschheim, Dibbern and Heinzi, 2008). The first chapter in my dissertation builds on the information processing view of the firm to propose that performance heterogeneity across BPO exchanges is a function of the fit between the information requirements (IR) and information capabilities (IC) of the exchange. The design of IC comprises both choice of the contract that addresses incentive conflict and the choice of relational processes and technologies that address cognitive conflict between the outsourcing firm and the service provider. I compare performance effects of the fit between IR and IC across dominant categories of BPO relationships to provide insights into the relative benefits of enacting such fit between the constructs. Empirical analysis of survey data on 128 active BPO relationships supports my hypotheses. The results have important implications for how BPO relationships must be designed and managed to realize strategic value. While the first chapter establishes the contractual and information structures of BPO relationships as important dimensions of BPO governance, the second chapter explores the interrelationships between these dimensions. I integrate perspectives in neoinstitutional economics and information processing to develop and test the theoretical argument that the extent of use of the information structure of the BPO relationship varies with the underlying contractual choice. I find that the performance effects of the information structure are stronger in time and materials BPO contracts, marked by low powered incentives, than in fixed price BPO contracts, marked by high powered incentives. Survey data on 134 BPO relationships provide empirical support for my hypotheses. The synergistic impact of incentives and information on BPO performance 2

12 emphasizes that their joint assessment is necessary to enhance the explanatory power of extant theories of organization. If heterogeneity in outsourcing performance is linked to the outsourcing decision and the financial ramifications are shown to be economically significant, it would imply the need to exercise caution in initiating outsourcing initiatives and emphasize that value chain scoping and management are important sources of comparative advantage in the modern firm. This is the motivation behind the third chapter of my dissertation. I assess the long-term abnormal returns to the hundred largest outsourcing initiatives implemented between 1996 and Relative to a size-and book-to-market matched sample of control firms in the industry, the mean three year buy-and-hold abnormal return for fixed price contracts is 17.5 percent (p<0.05) while that for relatively incomplete variable price contracts is percent (p<0.10). However, after conditioning on the factors that drive the outsourcing and contract choices, I find that significantly lower returns to relatively incomplete variable price contracts are the outcome of an adverse selection process - fast business requirements, high specificity of relational investments, lack of prior cooperative association between participant firms, and lack of experience of the outsourcing firm that increase the likelihood of choice of a variable price contract also result in lower abnormal returns. The three year returns are consistent with changes in income efficiency of the outsourcing firm. My findings point to the benefits of transaction cost economizing, and emphasize that financial markets are slow to recognize the extent of such benefit. 3

13 Chapter 1 - An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Information Capabilities Design on Business Process Outsourcing Performance 1.1 Introduction Business process outsourcing (BPO) refers to the delegation of one, or more, information and communication technology intensive business processes to an external service provider (Tornbohm and Andrault 2005). The role of IT in the outsourced process ranges from automating process tasks to infomating or delivering the right information to the right process worker at the right time. Prior research (e.g., Whitaker et al. 2006) argues that BPO has its origin in ITO. As the ITO market began to mature and providers acquired experience in the management of IT services for diverse business processes and knowledge of specific functional areas that built on the IT, organizations began to outsource the business processes enabled and supported by the IT services (Pfannenstein and Tsai 2004). Further, advances in the underlying IT, through reduction in the costs of coordination and control across firm boundaries (Hitt 1999), have rendered business capabilities much more portable so that even core processes like R&D, marketing and financial planning are moving outside the firm and changing the way firms value chain decisions shape their competitive position (Gottfredson et al. 2005). BPO is the fastest growing segment of the outsourcing market and is rapidly emerging as an imperative for competitive success 2. Yet, best practices have rarely emerged in the field (Tornbohm 2006), and a large number of firms cite significant 2 According to IDC, the worldwide BPO market is expected to grow to $682.5 billion in Forecast growth rates for BPO are 10-15% per annum (in contrast to 7.1% for technology infrastructure and application outsourcing). 4

14 negative experiences with their BPO initiatives 3. Further, there exists limited outsourcing research on the unique managerial challenges in BPO relationships, the performance implications of BPO or the drivers of such performance (Rouse and Corbitt 2006; Whitaker et al. 2006). Research on outsourcing performance is heavily tied to information systems (Dibbern et al. 2004) and has yet to apply the learning from ITO to emergent outsourcing forms such as BPO. Prior theoretical and empirical work on the management of ITO relationships has largely focused on the appropriation concerns that arise from behavioral uncertainty perceived by the user firm in its relationship with the service provider and contracting problems (Dibbern et al. 2004). These appropriation concerns are addressed through incentive alignment (Kern 1997; Willcocks and Kern 1998) or social exchange aspects of the relationship such as trust and its underlying normative behaviors that act as selfenforcing safeguards (Marcolin and McLellan 1998; Grover et al. 1996) 4. These studies largely draw on transaction cost economics, agency theory or social exchange theory to develop their arguments (Dibbern et al. 2004). The extant ITO literature provides a rich starting point to develop a model of BPO performance. However, an important limitation inherent to this body of research must be addressed to advance our understanding of BPO. Due to their focus on the uncertainty perceived by the user firm about its relationship with the provider, nearly all of these 3 70% of the respondents in a 2005 survey by Deloitte Consulting expressed significant dissatisfaction with their outsourcing projects. Similarly, a survey by Bain Consulting found that although 82% of large firms in North America engage in BPO, almost half of the respondents say their outsourcing programs fall short of expectations. According to SAP INFO Solutions, four out of five BPO contracts inked today will need to be renegotiated within two years. Further, 20% of all such contracts will collapse (SMR Intelligence 2006). 4 Dibbern et al. (2004) find that the emphasis on these relational aspects is often to the exclusion of the contract. This is likely because relationship theories that form the basis for some of these studies contend that formal contracts may signal distrust of the exchange partner, and by undermining trust, encourage, rather than discourage, opportunistic behavior (Ghoshal and Moran 1996; Fehr and Gachter 2000). 5

15 studies (on ITO management and performance) take place at an overall firm level, abstracting from the IS level (Dibbern et al. 2004) so that the specific nature of the outsourced IT receives little attention. Yet, the nature of the outsourced process requires attention in BPO. In an age of information intensive firms, products and services (Glazer 1999), business processes may be described as a series of interrelated information processing activities that exchange, manipulate or transform input information to create value. The amount and frequency of information processed by process workers varies significantly with process attributes such as analyzability (contrast tax management with customer experience management), dynamism (payroll processing versus product development), or interdependence with other organizational processes (new credit card issuance versus financial forecasting and planning). These attributes determine the responsiveness of a process to changes in the firm s value chain and business context, and in turn, the rate of information change in the process that must be managed on an ongoing basis. Bounded rationality, in addition to limiting the user firm s capacity to predict provider intent, also limits its ability to anticipate information changes in the outsourced task environment or formalize actions to respond to such change. The difference between adaptation problems engendered by relational and process uncertainty is understood in strategy and organization in terms of the difference between aligning interests (cooperation) and aligning actions (coordination) (Gulati et al. 2005; Heath and Staudenmayer 2000; Jacobides 2005) 5. Attention to uncertainty and ensuing information 5 These studies explain that problems of cooperation arise from incentive conflicts so that firms are not motivated to generate collectively beneficial outcomes. On the other hand, problems of coordination arise due to the lack of shared knowledge about the decision rules that others are likely to use (Gulati et al. 2005) and mutual interdependencies. Thus, the latter have their origin in cognitive conflict. 6

16 needs that are unique to an outsourced process is critical in extending our body of understanding of ITO management to BPO 6. Our study addresses this issue by exploring the management and performance of BPO relationships through the lens of information processing. We conceptualize BPO relationships as information processing networks whose unique information requirements (IR) are determined by the nature of the outsourced process. At one end of the spectrum are transactional BPO relationships involving relatively simple and modular processes characterized by low uncertainty and IR while at the other end are transformational BPO relationships involving complex interdependent processes characterized by high uncertainty and IR. We build on research (Galbraith 1973; Tushman and Nadler 1978) in the tradition of the information processing view of the firm (IPV) to theorize that managerial effort in BPO is largely concerned with the design of information capabilities that manage uncertainty in the task environment 7 and are idiosyncratic to the IR of the process. Consequently, we expect two theoretical outcomes. First, user firms will design information capabilities (IC) that fit or match the IR of the BPO relationship. Second, we expect significant performance gains from such effort. We test our hypotheses using a switching regression model that is estimated with survey data on 128 BPO relationships. Our results confirm that performance differences 6 The limited attention to the outsourced task in ITO may be due to relatively lower levels of uncertainty in the task environment. Business processes must adapt to changes in the business environment, which may necessitate changes in the underlying IT applications and infrastructure. However, the underlying IT infrastructure and applications are largely influenced by fundamental changes in the technological environment. For instance, consider the outsourcing of an outbound marketing campaign of a bank in our sample, designed to promote a payment protection product. The key process outputs, customer leads and product information, were continually updated to reflect changing customer preferences, new competitor product info, and inputs from other business processes such as product development and yield analyses. On the other hand, the underlying technology - data mining and analytics applications, and enterprise integration tools - was marked by relatively little change through the process cycle. 7 Prior research on strategic alliances (Gulati et al. 1998) finds it difficult to distinguish between appropriation and coordination concerns of uncertainty. 7

17 across BPO relationships arise as a function of the fit between the IR and IC of the exchange. The result is robust to both transactional and transformational BPO initiatives. Our research is an early attempt to empirically study the drivers of BPO performance. Several IS studies argue that outsourcing research appears to be heavily tied to IS (Dibbern et al. 2004) and that the field (of BPO) appears somewhat neglected compared to ITO (Borman 2006) with little rigorous empirical work that examines (BPO) performance outcomes (Whitaker et al. 2006). Yet, the study of BPO is salient to the IS field for three important reasons. First, emergent industry and academic research (Singh et al. 2007; Borman 2006,) suggests that with the growing maturity of the ITO market, ITO is increasingly being bundled with BPO offerings and subsumed into a broader business process decision. According to Singh et al. (2007), the delivery of such converged ITO/ BPO services is expected to account for over 40 percent of the total ITO deals by revenue by They emphasize that moving forward, an understanding of the issues unique to BPO management is essential for the IT organization. Second, as illustrated in our study, IT is integral to process execution and management in BPO as an enabler, delivery or coordination mechanism, or even a driver for innovation. This is true of transactional processes such as administration or processing services, where IT performs simple automation or process updates, as well as transformational processes such as customer analytics or financial planning, where IT facilitates linkages with other processes and delivers the right information to the right process worker at the right time. Thus, we offer that the IS field is best positioned to leverage its understanding of ITO to analyze various aspects of BPO performance. This 8

18 argument is consistent with the view that evolving forms of outsourcing offer an allencompassing opportunity to the entire IS field to establish the latter as the reference discipline for other fields (Dibbern et al. 2004) that conduct their own investigations of outsourcing. As efficiency gains from BPO initiatives become increasingly driven by process automation and sophisticated delivery models rather than by labor arbitrage, we expect this linkage between IT and BPO to only become more pronounced. Most important, BPO is an example of how advances in technology are rendering business capabilities much more portable so that even core processes like R&D, marketing and financial planning are moving outside the firm and changing the way firms value chain decisions shape their competitive position. IS scholars (Agarwal et al. 2004; Whinston et al. 2003) have opined that the future of the IS field depends on a significant number of researchers undertaking research on topics that represent the powerful transformational impact of IT. As BPO grows in its impact, we believe that research in this area has positive effects on the relevant nature of IS research. Our study also contributes to theories of inter-firm cooperation and coordination. We demonstrate the salience of the IPV to the inter-firm context; however, as IR of the relationship have to be managed without the structures and systems available in organizational hierarchies, we draw from prior research to identify structural, process and technological mechanisms that constitute the IC of the relationship. We also extend transaction cost analyses beyond considerations of incentive conflict. Our results emphasize that hierarchical control is just as important an element of IC of the BPO relationship that responds to the IR of the outsourced process as it is a contractual mechanism that responds to incentive conflict. 9

19 1.2 A Model of BPO Performance The key constructs in our theoretical model of BPO performance, IR and IC, map to the information processing view of the firm (IPV) (Galbraith 1973). The IPV describes IR as an important basis for explaining and predicting structures apposite for intraorganizational coordination and adaptation. IR is a function of task uncertainty and the allied need to coordinate interdependent subtasks among organizational actors (Daft and Macintosh 1981; Tushman and Nadler 1978). Effective coordination within the firm is achieved through information exchange mechanisms that either decrease the IR of the firm or enhance its capacity to process such IR. The IPV provides the foundation for our expectation that BPO performance is shaped by the design of IC that provide the optimal capacity to process the IR of the BPO relationship. Thus, dissatisfaction in BPO likely stems from the lack of fit between homogeneity in IC design and heterogeneous BPO task and relational environments that shape the IR of the BPO relationship. Our theoretical model of BPO performance is outlined in Figure IR of the BPO Relationship Information reduces uncertainty or changes an actor s understanding of the world (Tushman and Nadler 1978). Given the difficulty in assessing the amount of change in organizational understanding, research in the information processing tradition largely defines the IR of a firm in terms of the volume or quantity of data about organizational activities that is gathered and interpreted by organization participants (Daft and Macintosh 1981) to address uncertainty in the task environment. Task uncertainty, in 10

20 turn, has its origin in task analyzability, variety and interdependence (Galbraith 1973; Daft and Lengel 1986; Tushman and Nadler 1978). In extending this view to the BPO context, we define the IR of the BPO relationship in terms of the amount of information that must be collected, processed and disseminated across firm boundaries to address uncertainty in the outsourced task environment. Such uncertainty, in turn, is a function of two attributes of the outsourced process complexity and interdependence. Complexity of the outsourced process is defined in terms of low levels of analyzability and high levels of variety (Daft and Macintosh, 1981; Withey et al. 1983). An analyzable process consists of events that are hard, measurable and determinant (Daft and Weick 1984). When a process is analyzable, outcomes are well understood, and process administrators follow an objective, computational procedure to resolve problems (Daft and Macintosh 1981). Process variety is defined as the frequency of occurrence of process events that deviate from mean values of stability or uniformity of inputs/ outputs, requiring different work processes than is the norm for completion of process objectives (Perrow 1967; Van de Ven and Delbecq 1974; Pentland 2003). Low levels of analyzability imply that it is relatively difficult to establish rules, procedures and predetermined responses to potential problems during process execution and management. Fewer information cues require greater information processing to identify the type of information needed and the utility of that information for the outsourced process (Daft and Macintosh 1981), thereby increasing IR of the BPO relationship. Similarly, high levels of process variety result in greater levels of 11

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